This paper by Edward Tse, Saul Greenberg, Chia Shen, Clifton Forlines attempts to demonstrate the benefits of developing a technology that would allow video games to be played on a digital tabletop by multiple people, using speech commands and gestures to control the action rather than the usual input devices such as keyboards, mice, and game controllers. According to the researchers, this would be a good addition to home gaming because it would allow users to see and hear each other (unlike multiplayer computer games) and give users the same perspective of the action and allow to look at one another instead of a TV screen (unlike multiplayer console games). To demonstrate their technology and its benefits, the researchers ported two single-player computer games to their tabletop system: WC3, and the Sims, a “life simulation” game where the player controls the lives of on-screen avatars when they are at home, and attempts to make their life “better” by upgrading their house. This allowed two users (in their scenario) to collaborate over the games, even though by default these games could only be played by two people if one looked over the other’s shoulder or they took turns.
While this system may be a good idea for the future, in my opinion it is not quite feasible yet. Furthermore, the researchers had some misconceptions regarding current multiplayer games. For example, they assumed that all multiplayer console games use a “split-screen” perspective wherein each player has a custom view of his/her in-game environment. This is not the case. While a split-screen perspective is the norm for console multiplayer FPS games, it certainly does not apply to all multiplayer console games. For example, games of the fighting genre and most sports games (with a few exceptions such as golf, which involves taking turns) show both/all players’ avatars on the screen in the same place at the same time, forgoing the need for the split-screen. Furthermore, all game consoles that have come out since 1999 with the exception of the As to the use of speech in multiplayer games, many systems now come with built-in voice communication, or use third-party programs to achieve this. Examples of this include Microsoft’s Xbox Live, which allows users to speak into headsets to other people in their game, Half-Life’s built-in button-activated voice-chat, and Ventrilo, a free program that allows users to do the same. Everyone who plays multiplayer online games that use teamwork (which is most games) at all competitively uses some form of voice chat to collaborate with their teammates. While this is not quite the same as just pointing to something on a tabletop, it is far more versatile. The biggest problem I saw with the tabletop system is the lack of possibilities it provides in terms of games able to be played. Though the researchers attempted to demonstrate the “variety” of genres one could play on their system, both games they ported had a bird-eye perspective and involved management of many things at once on a map (be it an army base and its soldiers, or people and their furniture). I fail to see how this system would work with any game that used a first person perspective (FPS, racing, many Role-Playing games) or even a third-person perspective focusing solely on controlling one avatar (fighting games, sports games, many other RPGs). Even if it were possible, controlling an FPS through a table would involve standing over the table with a finger constantly pointing somewhere, which would be far more tedious and tiring than the traditional method. This eliminates nearly all game genres, other than Real-Time Strategy (RTS), such as WC3, or other top-down simulations, such as the Sim series of games, and games of global expansion, such as the Civilization series.
The tabletop gaming system is a novel idea overall and may be fun to use, but would require games to be made specifically for it, and that is not likely to happen considering how competitive the game market is. I believe it would be best to play table-top games on a table (and there are plenty of table-top games on the market) and leave video games to their own realm.
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